Cash stood up and faced her. “You know, I thought this whole George thing was just one of your weird little evil plans, and I was fine with it for a little while. Hell, I even supported it,” he said sternly. “But I think it’s changed you, Mads. You’re not the same girl I knew before. You’re weak now.”
How dare he? If Cash saw doing something like this for her family as weak, then he was a bigger asshole than she’d realized. She stood up, grabbed her backpack, and headed to the door. “Well, I’d rather be weak than an ass like you,” she hissed, her eyes flashing. “Good luck on your tour, Cash.”
At every stoplight Madison checked her phone, hoping she’d see a missed call or text from him saying he was sorry and that he didn’t mean what he said. But her phone remained silent the whole drive home.
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“HOW YOU FEELIN’, Daddy?” Madison asked softly as she walked into his bedroom. He was sitting in his bed under the covers.
“Like poison,” he said, scooting over so she could sit in bed with him.
“Me, too.” She sighed. “I’m sure for different reasons, though.”
“What’s wrong, darlin’?” He let out a hacking cough.
She leaned her head back on the pillow. “Nothing. Just a long day.” She turned to the TV, noticing two familiar little girls on the screen. “Oh my god, it’s me and Claire!”
“Ha-ha, yeah. Yer mom found these old videos when she was cleanin’ out the scary closet.” He was referring to the coat closet in the front hallway. It had gotten that nickname after it had become a storage place for all the things they couldn’t find a place for in the house. Every once in a while, Madison would throw something in there: her flowered Doc Martins, a stuffed monkey she was too old for but couldn’t bear to throw out, a faded jean jacket. Over the years, she’d seen a beef jerky machine, a broken dart board, a rusty old bait-casting reel, a turkey fryer. . . .
She focused on the home video. “Oh, is this the one where we’re at Uncle Mason’s wedding?” He was Connie and Jillian’s little brother who had moved to Grand Isle to be a fisherman.
“Yeah,” he said with a sentimental grin.
She cracked a smile and focused in on the TV. “The bride is wearing a lovely white gown wrapped in a big pink bow,” little Claire announced on camera, mimicking the red carpet reporters she watched on TV. “She looks like a present. . . .” She pushed her short brown hair behind her ears. “Absolutely gorgeous.”
“Yeah,” little Madison chimed in, scratching the big white bow in her hair that her mom had made her wear. “She’s pretty.”
“I can’t wait to get married!” Little Claire beamed, twirling around in her frilly pastel pink smock.
“Who are ya gonna marry?” Madison asked with a wide grin.
“Someone who makes me feel like a princess,” she answered matter-of-factly. “What about you?”
Young Madison turned her head straight into the camera and looked up to the right, biting her lip in excitement. “Cash Romero,” she said with a giggle.
Madison put her hand over her mouth.
“Is that the boy who always steals your glue?” Claire continued on the video.
“Shut up,” little Madison said, laughing, her knotty brown hair blowing in the wind.
“Um, let’s turn this off,” she said to her dad.
He hit the remote, and the screen froze. He turned to her with a smile before taking a sip from his blue tumbler. “Aren’t you happy that didn’t actually happen?”
She wanted to agree with him—she really did. But for some reason, all she wanted to do was hug that little girl in the stupid pale blue dress and cry.
38
claire
“AND TURN . . . AND shake . . . hips to the side . . . one, two, three, four . . . and crawl . . . crawl . . . bend . . . snap . . . and pose!” Kimmy pushed her messy hair out of her eyes and studied Claire’s stance. “Finger to the mouth! You can’t forget that! That’s the sexiest part.”
“Oh, sorry,” Claire said, biting her pointer finger in the seductive way Kimmy had taught her just a couple of minutes before. “I feel so stupid,” she finally admitted.
“But you’re doing so great!” Kimmy shouted above the loud music. “Seriously . . . when you were shaking those hips, I got a little turned on.” She gave Claire’s butt a playful smack, similar to the one they had been practicing on themselves in the last routine.
Claire’s eyes widened, and she blushed.
“Here, let’s take five,” Kimmy said, turning off the music. She sat on the floor and began stretching out her legs. “So, I looked at a potential studio space today. It’s an old car garage, but I think I could convert it easily.”
“That’s fun,” Claire said, joining her on the floor. “So, it’s really happening?” She was excited for Kimmy to start her own business; it made her wish she had something she was so passionate about.
Kimmy nodded eagerly. “I think so.”
“Have you thought about teaching other kinds of workout classes beside strip?” She stretched forward, grabbing her feet with her hands. “I just feel like you’d get a bigger client base that way.” Claire left out the part about also being too embarrassed to take the class in a public setting.
“Aw, but I love the whole concept,” Kimmy said. “Don’t you just feel empowered after you do it?”
“Um . . .” Claire looked up to the side and pondered the question. “I like doing this, yes, but I don’t know if ‘empowered’ is the word I would use.” She unscrewed the cap of her water bottle.
Kimmy tightened her ponytail. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but have things with your husband gotten any better?”
Claire thought back to her and Gavin’s relationship over the past month. She had been reading a lot of Christian self-help books, mainly about forgiveness and building a stronger marriage. She had pushed the whole strip club memory to the back of her mind and tried to instead focus on keeping her husband happy and interested in her. He had apparently stopped going to The Saddle—at least that’s what Kimmy had told her—and they’d even had sex a few times, but she couldn’t help but feel like their relationship was still stagnant. “I mean, if you’re asking me if these classes made Gavin look at me differently, then no,” she finally said.
“Well, that’s not the point of them,” Kimmy said, standing up. “Do you think I stand up onstage every night dancing for those gross guys at the club? Hell no. I’m dancing for myself.”
Claire took a gulp of her water, feeling perplexed.
“I know you think that you’re doing it for your husband to turn him on, and maybe that’s a perk, but that’s not the goal with this stuff.” Kimmy grabbed Claire’s hands and pulled her up off the ground, placing her hands on her shoulders. “It’s about you. You need to feel sexy and confident for anyone else to think that. And trust me . . . when you do feel that way, you won’t even care what anyone else thinks because you’ll be so high.” Kimmy did a twirl, striking a pose at the end with a hip pop.
Claire clapped and smiled. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“Take it from the top!”
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